So, what's with the scare/single quotes then ?? Mr Age??
Mr Gunner was, clearly, stolen.
D.J.McEvoy
Alice Springs NT
At 10:38 17/08/99 +1000, you wrote:
THE AGE
August 17, 1999
`Stolen child' tells of capture
By CAROLINE MILBURN
LAW REPORTER
A young Aboriginal boy was chased through the
bush by a white man and hidden under a
blanket by relatives before being captured, the
stolen generations trial heard yesterday.
Mr Peter Gunner, now 51, told the Federal
Court how a ``white fella'' grabbed him from
his family at Utopia, an outback cattle station,
after two previous bids to capture him failed.
``The first attempt was at the Utopia
homestead camp where a truck pulled up and I
took off and got away from him and hid down
the river bank,'' Mr Gunner said. ``The
Aboriginal people at Utopia hid me under a
blanket. My grandmother, sisters and my
mother's sisters, they were all sitting almost on
top of me. I was under the blanket while this
bloke was looking for me until he went away.''
Mr Gunner is one of two people involved in a
landmark case against the Federal Government.
He and another Aborigine of mixed descent,
Mrs Lorna Cubillo, 61, are seeking
compensation for being taken from their
outback families decades ago and forced to
spend their childhood in Northern Territory
institutions.
Mr Gunner said he escaped the second time by
jumping from the back of the truck when it
stopped at the station's boundary gate. But he
was finally captured by a white man in a khaki
uniform, thrown on to the back of a
canvas-covered ute and driven 250 kilometres
to St Mary's mission home at Alice Springs.
``I put up a bit of a struggle but he (the man)
had a good grip on me and put me in the back
of the truck,'' Mr Gunner said. ``I was crying
and screaming, all the families were there, a lot
of them were crying and yelling in Aboriginal
language.''
Mr Gunner said he lived a happy, tribal life at
Utopia, where his family taught him to hunt and
treated him no differently from the other
children. But at St Mary's the missionaries
regularly gave him the worst punishment given
to the children - 35 lashes with a garden hose -
for using his fingers to eat from a plate,
bed-wetting and for making his bed on the
floor.
Asked by his counsel Mr Jack Rush, QC,
whether he had ever slept in a bed before, Mr
Gunner said: ``No. I put all the blankets on the
floor to make the bed on the floor ... I got a
flogging.''
Mr Gunner said he escaped from St Mary's
three times to find his mother, but each time
the police caught him. When he was returned to
the home after each incident, Mr Constable, a
missionary, flogged him 35 times.
``(The third) attempt lasted about a month ... I
just lived off the land around Alice Springs with
my shanghai, killing birds and cooking them
until the police got me again and brought me
back to St Mary's,'' Mr Gunner said.
Mr Gunner's lawyers estimate he was about
seven when he was removed from his family.
He told the court the missionaries sent him
barefoot to school in Alice Springs, where he
was put into the kindergarten class with much
younger children.
Mr Gunner said he could not read or write
when he eventually left the school. The case is
continuing.
*
This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without
permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment,
scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal
copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of
the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
---
RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at
http://www.mail-archive.com/
To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body
of the message, include the words:unsubscribe announce or click here
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce
This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission
from the
copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under
the "fair
use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further
without
permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/
